| 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg | |
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Insignia of 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg |
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| Active | 2 January 1943–8 May 1945 |
| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Waffen-SS |
| Type | Panzer |
| Size | Division |
| Engagements | Operation Epsom Operation Market Garden Operation Nordwind Halbe Pocket |
The 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg or 10.SS-Panzer-Division Frundsberg was a German Waffen SS panzer division. The division was formed at the beginning of 1943 as a reserve for the expected Allied invasion of France. However, their first campaign was in the Ukraine in April 1944. Highly motivated after combat success in Ukraine the unit was then transported back to the west where they fought the Allies in France and at Arnhem. The division was later transported to Pomerania then fought south east of Berlin in the Lausitz area to the end of the war.
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Originally, the name Karl der Große (Charlemagne) was used for some time in 1943, but French volunteers in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS used Charlemagne (33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French)), so the honor title Frundsberg was chosen, which refers to 16th Century German landsknecht commander Georg von Frundsberg.
The division was mainly formed from conscripts and it first saw action at Tarnopol in April 1944. It took part in the rescue of German troops cut off in the Kamianets-Podilskyi pocket.[1]
It was then sent to Normandy to counter the Allied landings. It and its "twin" Division, the 9th SS Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen, played an important part in holding the British Forces back in Normandy, particularly during Operation Epsom.[1]
It retreated into Belgium before being sent to rest near Arnhem where they soon had to fight the Allied parachute assault during Operation Market Garden at Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, at which time it, along with the 9th SS Panzer, constituted the II SS Panzer Corps.[1]
After rebuilding it fought in the Alsace in January 1945 before being sent to the Eastern Front where it fought against the Red Army in Pomerania and later in Saxony.[1]
Encircled at the Halbe Pocket, the division took heavy losses but managed to break out of the encirclement and retreated through Moritzburg before reaching the area of Teplice in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war.[2] At this location, the division surrendered to the Soviet Army.[3]
In August 2006, German writer and Nobel laureate Günter Grass admitted to having been an assistant tank gunner with the division after having been conscripted into the Waffen-SS at the age of 17 in November 1944. As Grass had always been an outspoken critic of Germany's treatment of its Nazi past, his surprise admission caused a great stir in the press.[4]
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